Volume 17, No.

Recorded at “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession”—the Mises Circle in Houston, Texas, on 24 January 2015.

Volume 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014)

Timothy P. Roth
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2014, 192 pages

The Federal legislative process has completely broken down, from a deliberate rule-guided process to one that seems completely ad hoc and driven by lobbyists. This trend continues no matter what party is in power. Congress bypasses its own rules, ignores its own schedules, and call for votes without providing enough time for representatives and senators to even read the bills.

For the last five years, attempts to reform America’s health care system have focused primarily on the demand side of the market, and specifically on the market for insurance. Yet, these reforms have not achieved significant improvements in health care outcomes, nor reductions in cost. As health care specialist John C.

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014)

KEYWORDS: Panic of 1873, Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Depression of 1873–1879, national banking system

JEL CLASSIFICATION: E2, E3, E4, N1, N2

SECTION I: INTRODUCTION

With the recent financial meltdown in 2008, Austrian economics has experienced a revival by both professional and popular commentators.

Volume 17, No. 4 (Winter 2014)

Daniel Stedman Jones

At The Daily Caller, Mark Thornton wonders if the Fed has any plan at all, or if it’s just afraid to do anything in the face of such a weak economy:

Taxes sound like a boring subject, but Dan brings great energy and passion to the subject: he’ll tell us why the US “worldwide” tax regime violates the basic human right not to be hounded by a country in which you neither live nor have income, why Burger King was right to move its corporate headquarters out of the US, why greedy politicians hate tax competition, and why invasive laws like FATCA should scare anyone who cares about privacy.

The Baltic Dry Index is the index price for several types of container ships. The index price is very sensitive to global economic activity and the level of international trade. An increase in international trade increases the index price and a decrease in international trade decreases the index price. At the height of the housing bubble the index traded over 11,000 and most recently sank to historic lows near 608. The index is down 45% over the last year and 22% since the beginning of the year.

Ordinary people, and sometimes experts as well, tend to overreact to short-term economic changes. The current economic malaise in the United States and Europe has brought forth a bevy of commentators convinced that this time the economy has taken a permanent turn for the worse. Never again, they declare, will we enjoy growing prosperity as we did in days of yore.